I think it’s sad that Anthony didn’t even think of going *outside his building* for lunch, like it’s not a possibility. What – they got ya trapped in there? Seriously, get out. Beyond your desk, beyond the cafeteria.

Stepping away from one’s own personal state of mind for a minute: this chart also works for colleagues. *My* melancholy definitely increases along with the number of my colleagues who decide to eat at their desks: the smell of food (it’s irrelevant whether I like it or not), the clink of cutlery on plates, the noise of eating. Distracting and depressing.

(Yes, there are workplaces where there is nowhere else to go to eat, even in fine weather – I’ve worked in a place like that – but they are definitely in the minority.)

I used to be stuck in the middle of nowhere.. it was either at my desk or in the industrial-type parking lot. Changed to a downtown job 3 years ago and vowed never to eat at my desk again. Even if it’s a food court, it’s so much better, nicer scenery :)

It has made a HUGE difference–at least for me–whether my desk has been in an open or cubicled area, in a “private” office with a door but with an inside glass wall allowing me no privacy, or in a real office in which I could close the door and be shut off from the world for while I ate lunch.